UPFRONT
DXB TO CLOSE NORTHERN RUNWAY FOR 45 DAYS DUBAI AIRPORTS has confirmed plans to close Dubai International’s (DXB) northern runway for a 45-day period between May 9 and June 22, 2022, to carry out complete refurbishment that will ensure “continued safety and efficient operations”. While regular runway maintenance is scheduled on a weekly basis, more extensive upgrades such as the one planned require a complete closure of the runway.
The last time this level of work was carried out on the northern runway was in 2014, while the southern runway underwent similar improvements in 2019. As DXB is a dual runway operation, the hub will continue to operate throughout this period, but several flights will be redirected to Dubai World Central (DWC), Dubai’s second airport, to limit the impact on service during the closure period. Dubai Airports has provided advance
notice to all airlines to plan for flight reductions and schedule planning accordingly and is advising passengers who are due to travel into or out of Dubai during the closure period to check with their respective airlines the airport and/or terminal of arrival/ departure ahead of their journeys. More information will be made available as plans develop and as flight schedules are finalised, said Dubai Airports. Visit dubaiairports.ae
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Business travel enters hyper-growth mode
EMIRATES RANKED IN GLOBAL TOP 100 EMIRATES, the world’s largest
international airline, has ranked among the top 100 most reputable organisations in the world by 2022 Global RepTrak® 100. The award-winning Dubai-based airline is the only company from the Middle East and North Africa region to make it to the list, with a reputation score of 72.7. As the world’s largest reputation database with more than 20 years of data, the RepTrak Platform compares companies across different industries worldwide, by analysing millions of perception and sentiment data points from online surveys. The scores companies achieve represent what their stakeholders think and feel about their brand. M AY 2 0 2 2
THE FIRST THREE MONTHS of 2022 saw business travel enter a “hyper-growth” mode not seen since the pandemic, with group bookings leading the surge in demand, according to corporate travel agency TripActions. “Once Omicron cases dipped and restrictions dropped, February’s rebound resulted in TripActions’ biggest month ever. Biggest, that is, until March,” the company said. Travel spend increased 220 per cent from January through March 2022,
according to TripAction’s numbers, and rocketed 1,650 percent year-onyear in March 2022. Sales professionals comprised 44 per cent of the Travel Management Company’s business travellers in March, with operations and engineering employees comprising 12 per cent. In the UK market, home-working network Travel Counsellors said its corporate sales were up 20 per cent in March 2022 versus March 2019, while April was its best month yet since the pandemic.
